24/03/15 09:31
A&E continued improvement
Weekly A&E performance figures published.
Performance at Scotland’s core A&E sites has continued to improve, with 92.2 per cent of patients being seen, treated and either discharged or admitted within four hours.
Across the country all boards saw at least nine out of ten A&E patients within four hours at core sites, with more than half of health boards seeing around 95 per cent of patients in this time.
The figures published today for the week ending March 15 are an improvement on last week’s figures when 90.1 per cent of patients were seen within four hours.
While there remain challenges and pressures on the system this is also a significant improvement on the first publication of weekly statistics for the week ending February 22 when 86.1 per cent of people were seen within four hours.
Long waits have continued to reduce over the latest week, with less than one per cent of patients waiting over eight hours.
During the same week NHS England saw 89.7 per cent of A&E patients within four hours at core sites.
Health Secretary Shona Robison said:
“It is encouraging to see that performance at Scotland’s core A&E sites is continuing to move in the right direction, with all boards across the country seeing, treating and either discharging or admitting around nine out of 10 people within four hours.
“There is no doubt this year has been a challenging winter, but today’s figures show that, backed up by Government support, health boards have made progress to recover from the challenges faced and improve on waiting times.
“This is of course down to our hard working NHS staff who are doing a fantastic job to treat people as quickly as possible.
“Reassuringly long waits are also continuing to reduce, with less than one per cent of patients waiting for more than eight hours – although we are clear that this must still reduce even further.
“This reflects the considerable improvements that are still to be made to benefit patients. Boards must now focus on sustaining the reduction in waiting times and move towards meeting our world leading, stringent targets.
“We recently confirmed our continued support to areas experiencing challenges. This included committing £5 million from the £31.5 million Performance Fund to support improvement across NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde to relieve pressure at the front door of the hospital.
We also expanded the role of the A&E performance support team, put into the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley in January, to support the Western Infirmary by building on lessons learned in Paisley and sharing good practice across all NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde sites.
“And it is promising to see that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has seen significant improvement this week with nine out of ten patients being seen and treated within four hours compared to 84.6 the previous week.
“Today’s figures also show that the number of A&E patients being treated within four hours at the Royal Alexandra Hospital has increased from 75 per cent during the week ending February 22, up to 88.3 per cent during the week ending March 15. Performance also continues to improve at the Western Infirmary in Glasgow.”
Support for NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde comes ahead of the move to the new £842 million South Glasgow Hospital in May. This will be the largest hospital in Scotland and will replace services at the Royal Hospital for Sick Kids at Yorkhill, the Southern General Hospital, Western and Victoria Infirmaries and Mansionhouse unit. The emergency and assessment capacity at the new hospital will be greater than the combined unscheduled care capacity of the Western, Victoria and Southern General hospitals.
In January the Scottish Government committed £100 million specifically to help health boards and local authorities tackle delayed discharge. This is both good for the patient and frees up beds to help people move out of A&E and through the system.
This is in addition to the Government’s substantial, £50 million investment in an unscheduled care action plan and the roll-out of a new collaborative approach to unscheduled care across Scotland. This new approach will work to minimise long waits in A&E as well as look to ensure best practice is installed throughout the hospital system, supporting joined up work across health boards to address wider issues of patient flow through hospital.
Long waits have dramatically reduced over the latest week, with 18 patients waiting over 12 hours (0.1 per cent of all attendances) and a 60 per cent reduction in the number of patients waiting over 8 hours, to 0.9 per cent of all attendances.
Weekly A&E waiting time figures:
The fourth publication of weekly A&E waiting time statistics for the week ending March 15 covers the 32 emergency departments in Scotland which provide a 24 hour emergency medicine consultant led service.
The statistics relate to patients who were seen and subsequently admitted, transferred or discharged within 4, 8 and 12 hours.
The latest Weekly Statistical Publication is available at: www.gov.scot/stats/bulletins/01150
The statistics included in the Weekly Publication are also published on ISD’s NHS Performs website: http://www.isdscotland.scot.nhs.uk/Products-and-Services/NHS-Performs/
NHS Performs:
ISD produced a new section within their website for the initial release of NHS Performs on March 3 2015. Further work to develop the data and functionality of NHS Performs is already underway with a refresh planned for June 2015. Initial statistics available via NHS Performs from the 3 March 2015 include:
Weekly statistics relating to Emergency Departments at hospital, NHS Board and Scotland
Number of A&E attendances, % seen within 4 hours, number over 4, 8 and 12 hours
Monthly statistics relating to A&E activity at hospital, NHS Board and Scotland.
Number of A&E attendances, % resulting in admission, % seen within 4 hours, numbers over 4, 8 and 12 hours
Quarterly statistics relating to Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratios at hospital and Scotland
Standardised Mortality Ratio (SMR) and % Change in SMR since 2007
Weekly statistics relating to norovirus at hospital, NHS Board and Scotland
Total number of wards closed
Quarterly statistics relating to Healthcare associated infection at NHS Board and Scotland including C. difficile infections (over 15s) and SAB Infections.
The new website can be accessed at: http://www.isdscotland.scot.nhs.uk/Products-and-Services/NHS-Performs/
Essential actions for unscheduled care:
In January the Scottish Government announced plans to roll-out and embed a new collaborative approach to unscheduled care across Scotland.
Developed in partnership with the Academy of Royal Colleges, the Royal College of Nursing and other key partners, the new essential action points for unscheduled care aim to ensure the whole NHS system works together effectively from a patient’s first contact with the NHS to, if they require admission, their discharge from hospital back into the community.
More information on this is available here: http://news.scotland.gov.uk/News/Review-of-out-of-hours-primary-care-1568.aspx